This book is with an introduction by Ruth Scurr. John Aubrey was a modest man, a self-styled antiquarian and the man who invented modern biography. His 'lives' of the prominent figures of his genera...

Charles II has always been one of the most instantly recognisable British kings - both in his physical appearance, disseminated through endless portraits, prints and pub signs, and in his complicate...

During the course of the seventeenth century nearly 400,000 people left Britain for the Americas, most of them from England. Crossing the Atlantic was a major undertaking, the voyage long and treacherous. Ther...

In 1666 the City of London was devastated by a fire that raged for five days, leaving some of its grandest buildings in ruins and many thousands homeless. This map, commissioned by the Lord Mayor to...